


Finis

by cvioleta



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Beautiful Golden Fools, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 15:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18813655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cvioleta/pseuds/cvioleta
Summary: Someone already wrote 8.05 from Jaime's perspective, so I'll chime in with Cersei's!  I'm very pleased with the show's choices here and wouldn't change a thing - just adding detail.





	Finis

She supposed, on some level, that she always knew she could lose.  Not that she would have ever said it out loud - the most essential quality of a queen was confidence.  Even if you had doubts, you made a decision and took action.  You moved forward and told yourself you would prevail, because not believing in yourself would be deadly.  Ruling was like walking across hot coals. If you really believed you would make it to the other side with unscathed feet, you would.  If you doubted, you would be a cripple with two burned soles, and a cripple could not escape their enemies' relentless pursuit.

_You win or you die. There is no middle ground._

Cersei remembered the words she'd said to Ned Stark as she walked quickly down the stairs to the atrium, toward the map she'd had painted on the floor of the known world.  She loved that map and had spent many hours lost in thought, strategizing, while walking from one part of the seven kingdoms to another.  After Jaime left, it was all she had, and how odd it was to sit the Iron Throne, to rule as she had so often prayed for, and yet to feel incomplete.  She never admitted to herself how frightened she was that he might not return, that she might bring his child into the world without him and it would never know its father.  When she felt that sense of unease creeping up, she would immerse herself in some problem that distracted her.  It was weakness to worry, it was weakness to fear, and she couldn't allow it of herself.  

Now, it might not matter.  She'd seen the dragon, seen the fire.  A lifetime of preparation to rule, of suffering through watching a parade of incompetent men rule in her stead, and yet it wasn't enough.  What she'd thought was a level playing field, or even one where she had a substantial edge, had been flipped on its side by the appearance of Daenerys on her dragon.  Most of King's Landing was burning, and her soldiers had thrown down their swords.   _Cowards_.  

_Queen you shall be . . . until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”_

Despite herself, she knew she was starting to panic.  The last part of the prophecy was coming true, just as the rest of it had, but what was left to take? It was already gone, all of it, save for the child in her belly. 

She saw a movement and turned.  The air was thick with dust from the damage to the castle, but through it she saw gold, her favorite color. The color of her hair, the color of the golden crowns that had sat upon her lost children's heads.  Her mouth fell open as her eyes adjusted and she saw the golden hand resting on the column, the face...

She could do no more than let out an incoherent sound.   _Jaime_.  He walked to her, dirty, his face bleeding, and she reached out and smiled and came into his arms as she'd done a thousand times, clutching him, her hands sliding up around his shoulders and despite everything, she felt a surge of happiness and renewed hope.  She pressed herself against him and he pulled back just a bit, so he could see her face and look into her eyes.  His face was bloodied and dirty, and there was a vicious looking cut across his right cheekbone.

"You're hurt..."  Cersei felt the tears well up in her eyes, but had no power to stop them.

"It doesn't matter," he responded.

 _We're the only ones that matter. The only ones in this world._ Cersei slid her hands down to his waist and they came away wet.  She stepped back, looking down at them and realizing they were covered with blood.  

"You're bleeding."  

They were interrupted by more falling debris.  He put his arm around her and guided her and she said nothing more, just followed, happy for once to have him lead.  He led her down the stairs, deep below the Red Keep.  She realized where they were going - she too knew that there was a passageway to the beach.  Of course, a dragon might extinguish them the second they emerged, but they would try.  

_So we fight and die or we submit and die - I know my choice._

"This way," Jaime told her, leading her by the hand and walking quickly, despite his limp.  They looked up and stopped short. The passageway was filled with rubble, filled to the top.  

Jaime hurried to check the other passageways while Cersei stood quietly, watching him.  It was eerily quiet except for the occasional pebble bouncing and falling down one of the rubble piles.  They were down so deep, she could no longer hear the chaos outside, but she could feel the rumbling of the earth beneath her feet and knew the dragon was continuing his attack.   She could hear herself breathing and the sound her breath made when it caught in her throat.  In front of her eyes, the room blurred, and she blinked angrily, wanting the tears to go away before they could obscure her view of Jaime.

"I want our baby to live."

She hardly recognized her own voice and only knew she had said it out loud when Jaime turned to look at her.  She sounded weak and frightened and she heard herself babble it again.  "I want our baby to live."  She turned away, her eyes desperately searching for a solution and finding only walls and rubble, solid, impenetrable.  "I want our baby to live.  Don't let me die, Jaime, please don't let me die!  Please don't let me die..."  

And then he was there, holding her, but it did not calm her as it normally did.  Cersei  _felt_ , no,  _knew_ that there would be no narrow escape this time.  She flashed back to holding Tommen on her lap on the Iron Throne, so many years ago.  What a fool she'd been, thinking that was the end.  

 _This_ was the end, and she didn't want to go.  She wasn't  _done_.  She had to live, she had to have their baby, she wasn't ready, she couldn't accept this...

"I don't want to die."

"Look at me!"  He held her tight but she wouldn't turn to him, as if by not looking, she could deny their mutual fate. Cersei felt weak and helpless and wished she could feel angry, anger would be better but it wasn't coming.  Only tears, tears for her fourth child who would never even see the world, never take his first breath, never let out his first cry.   _It wasn't fair!_

"Not like this, not like this, not like this," she chanted.  Cersei felt like she couldn't breathe, like her lungs were full of dust already, clotting in her throat like quicksand.  

"Look me in the eye,"  Jaime commanded her. "Don't look away, don't look.  Look at me!"  He turned her head, his hands on her face.  "Just look at me."  

She looked into his green eyes, just like her own, and the haze cleared.  "Nothing else matters," he told her, as he wiped her tears away with a gloved hand.  "Nothing else matters.  Just us."

_Fuck everyone who isn't us._

He nodded, and after a moment, she nodded too.  There was nothing left -  _just us_. 

_We came into the world together and we will leave it together._

Cersei wrapped her arms around him, and held him tight, and he did the same, crushing her to him.  Her hand came up to find his and clasp it.  She heard the rumbling start, and closed her eyes.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
